the gay splendor of the parterre and the pleasure-ground, the man of feeling turns away, sick and weary of the constant stimulus occasioned by these objects, to seek the tranquillity of more humble scenes, amidst the wildness of nature. Under the spreading branches of a rugged old oak, where he could muse by the side of a rustic stream, gliding in spontaneous meanderings through sedges and over pebbles, he would find more enduring satisfaction than in the proudest park or pleasure-ground. To encourage this simplicity of taste, to check any exorbitant zeal for luxury in architecture or mere ornamental gardening, and to cherish in the minds of the people a love of Nature and a sensibility to her unadorned charms, should be one of the chief aims of the American proprietor and artist.

But

It was our original intention to review the whole ground of gardening literature in this country; but we have already exceeded the space which we can properly use, in the discussion of the general subject. We have in years past noticed the valuable works of Mr. A. J. Downing, whose short and brilliant career of genius and enterprise has made an impression on the public mind that can never be obliterated. among the writers on subjects connected with rural improvements, we must not omit to name Mr. Charles M. Hovey, author of "The Fruits of America," a work of rare merit and beauty, and for more than twenty years the able and persevering editor of the "Magazine of Horticulture," a periodical that embodies more practical information on this and collateral subjects than any other American journal. If Mr. Hovey, who certainly possesses talents of a high order, had been less absorbed in practical operations, and had devoted himself entirely to the literature of horticulture, we think there are but few authors who would have surpassed him in this department.

ART. VIII.—1. The Dramatic Works of WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE; with Notes original and selected. By SAMUEL WELLER SINGER. Chiswick: Charles Whittingham. 1826. 10 vols. 12mo.

2. The Works of SHAKESPEARE: the Text carefully restored according to the first Editions; with Introductions, Notes original and selected, and a Life of the Poet; by the Rev. H. N. HUDSON. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 185156. 11 vols. 12mo.

3. The Works of SHAKESPEARE; the Text regulated by the recently discovered Folio of 1632, containing early Manuscript Emendations, with a History of the Stage, a Life of the Poet, and an Introduction to each Play; by J. PAYNE COLLIER. To which are added Glossarial and other Notes, and the Readings of former Editions. Redfield: New York. 1853. 1 vol. large 8vo, and 8 vols. 12mo.

It is one of the maxims of commerce, that supply is regulated by demand; and when publishers issue new editions of standard books, we may infer that new editions are wanted. But if we had access to the publishers' statistics, and could show how many copies of Shakespeare have been issued from the English and American press within a twelvemonth, we should probably think that no more could be required for the present generation. What is ordinarily implied, however, by new editions, is old editions literally reproduced; the only variations of the new from the old consisting of certain mechanical arrangements of paper and type, at the publisher's discretion. This rendering of the term "new editions" is substantially correct when applied to the multitude of authors in our vernacular; but it fails in its application to him who stands at the head of the multitude. We read, in the various forms of publication, Milton's Milton, Gibbon's Gibbon, Scott's Scott, and so on; but whose Shakespeare do we read? Rowe's, Pope's, Theobald's, Johnson's, until we reach, perhaps, five hundred volumes, compiled by some forty editors and commentators, each of whom makes a point, if not a merit, of differing from his predecessors. Of their labors

in the aggregate it may be said, Conjecture "has done its worst"; and a perverse determination on the part of editors to alter at any rate has at last placed Shakespeare where, in that way, "nothing can touch him further." It may be called the calamity of English literature, that Shakespeare's Shakespeare, in a text unanimously recognized by the English people, is yet wanting to the English language.

Account for this as we may, Shakespeare's indifference to posthumous fame, or his unconsciousness of deserving it, must form a part of the explanation. But the circumstances were peculiar. To all authors except dramatists and clergymen, typographical publication is of primary importance, for by that means only do they come before the world; it is their first step toward the results of authorship, and they look after its correctness with proportionate solicitude. On the other hand, the chief publication of the dramatist is through the medium of actors, instead of printers; his first success must be achieved on the stage; and in Shakespeare's time, as now, not only did the success of a play at the theatre precede its publication in a book, but also then, as now, the chief profit to the author arose from its scenic representation. Hence, when Shakespeare had attained the main object, a competency for life, he took little heed of the insignificant sum that he might have derived from his plays as books; and he had this much more important affirmative reason to prevent his publishing them, that the publication would deprive his theatre of the monopoly of the profits arising from their performance. These things sufficiently account for the fact, that Shakespeare never authorized or supervised the printing of his own works; but they still leave mankind to wonder at his indifference to a poet's immortality.

The imperfections in Shakespeare's text have long been commented on and lamented; and their existence is understood by none better than by the poet's editors themselves, — when they commence editing. But no one of them can be expected to entertain the same opinion after he has completed his work, his being the exception arising from the rule. Take, for example, the views of Mr. Singer, whose edition is the

basis of Mr. Hudson's. Mr. Singer says, in his Preface, that he intends

"to afford to the general reader a correct edition of Shakespeare; accompanied by an abridged commentary, in which all superfluous and refuted explanations and conjectures, and all the controversies and squabbles of contending critics, should be omitted; and such elucidations only of obsolete words and obscure phrases, and such critical illustrations of the text, as might be deemed most generally useful, be retained. To effect this, it became necessary"

for Mr. Singer to do certain things, which he goes on to particularize, without any misgiving as to his success. His claim to have “omitted all the superfluous and refuted explanations of previous commentators" is, perhaps, the most audacious assumption ever seriously put forward by a literary man. And as for a "correct edition of Shakespeare," meaning thereby a correct text, we should prefer almost any other expositor. It is true, he was aware of the blunders of his predecessors in this regard; he elaborately specifies them; he quotes Gifford to denounce them; but he ends by imitating them. Like many theatrical Hamlets, after laboring to make the players understand the philosophy and the folly of their stage-ranting, he incontinently "rants as well as they." A single example may suffice to show the nicety of his sensibility to a correct Shakespearian text. It is a fact superlatively familiar to every one, that, in Macbeth's last scene with the witches, the three apparitions that rise successively from the caldron utter their "promises" in rhyme. Yet Mr. Singer, without the slightest remorse, thus arranges the lines for the second apparition:

"Be bloody, bold,

And resolute laugh to scorn the power of man,

For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth."

Mr. Singer's edition of Shakespeare, as a whole, is thus fairly and accurately described by Mr. Hudson:

"The celebrated Chiswick edition, of which this is meant to be as nea an imitation as the present state of Shakespearian literature renders desirable, was published in 1826, and has for some time been out of print. In size of volume, in type, style of execution, and adaptedness to the wants of both the scholar and the general reader, it presented a

combination of advantages possessed by no other edition at the time of its appearance. The text, however, abounds in corruptions, introduced by preceding editors under the name of corrections."

Mr. Hudson says of his own text, that his chief authority is the folio of 1623, with frequent and careful references to the quartos of an earlier date; but he wrote his Preface in 1851, previously to Mr. Collier's discovery of the value of the annotated folio of 1632. The readers of this journal* need not be reminded, that we consider the work of the old MS. annotator indispensable to the correction of any new edition of Shakespeare's text. It would be superfluous here to repeat what we have already stated at length; but we have no hesitation in saying, that any effort to "restore the text of Shakespeare according to the first editions," unaccompanied by a careful collation with Mr. Collier's volume, is substantially labor in vain.

The radical error of editors and commentators in dealing with the old MS. annotator consists in their treating him as one of themselves, whereas he actually has nothing in common with them. They, in their corrections, confessedly deal only in theories; he, apparently, only in facts. They, ages after Shakespeare was dead, conjecture what he wrote; he, nearly contemporaneous with Shakespeare, affirms what he wrote. They have printed books, not revised by Shakespeare, and universally admitted to be full of blunders, on which to found their speculations; he had his own concurrent knowledge of the plays as acted, and probably had access to the very prompt-books from which they were performed. They correct hesitatingly, conjecturally, like an editor who has never seen the "copy," and their corrections are numbered by scores; he corrects confidently, as with knowledge, like a proof-reader who has the "copy" at his elbow, and his corrections are numbered by thousands, their very multitude and minuteness tending strongly to establish their authenticity. The proof-reader may not always be right, nor the editor always wrong, in case they differ; but, beyond all peradventure, the proof-reader has, à priori, the best of the argument.

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*North American Review, April, 1854.

Nor does